The Winds of Change Saga: Hate This Place
by Shinzui Naru
Summary: (Omake/Extra) The Gundam pilots and friends are back in school! Oh, the horror! What kinds of events will follow them?? Read and review, please!
1. Registration

# Hate This Place

Disclaimer: I seriously don't own Gundam Wing. But I *do* own Rayne and Shira Cetauri, as well as Max Kine and the Riverdown/Icewing Gundam. But that's it!

Setting: This is an AU (alternate universe) story starting right at the end of _Silent Storm_. Rayne never self-destructed the Icewing.

Notes: I have too many stories goin' on at the same time…

Okay, since this is from my imagination they're going to a public school with no uniforms. The school is _not_ real and it's called Arbor High School. (Of course, the school isn't nearly as good as my school, R. J. Reynolds HS, but is modeled after it) Since they're all 15 or 16 I'm assuming they're in high school. Also, they're all freshman except for Trowa, who's a sophomore. Anyways, I switch POVs every once in a while, but it'll have the narrator's name at the beginning.

With that said, read and review!!

## Chapter 1: Registration

### Rayne

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, still hot in mid-August, and the sound of crickets greeted my ears as I awoke to face the day —and school— but I should have known better than to have a positive attitude about the new school year. It was one of those days that started off perfectly but then came back with vengeance to bite you on the ass. But I should really start at the beginning, and this is most definitely not it. 

~*~

I first heard the news from my best friend (but he was so much more than that), Max Kine. He called and told me that he had enrolled in an American high school. I was in the colonies at the time, struggling to get a decent job to pay for my own school's tuition. But after he called, I figured it would be worthwhile in some way —if my education didn't benefit, I would leave with some wonderful memories, I supposed— to go to a public school. Max had also explained to me that the Gundam pilots would be there too.

I arrived on the Earth the next day and Max greeted me at the spaceport with a kiss. I hadn't known before then how much I had missed everything about him. And suddenly, I couldn't wait for school start.

Funny, I hadn't even registered my classes and I was already excited about the school.

But something was nagging me in the back of my mind, a tiny voice that kept telling me, _"Everything's gonna change, and you can't do a damned thing about it, Rayne Cetauri."_ I did my best to shake the feeling away, but it refused to leave.

Max and I took a bus to the school, and he showed me around the campus. It really _was_ a beautiful school. In the front of the school was a neatly trimmed green lawn shaded by oak trees and a knee-high sign in the front of the building with _Arbor High School_ written in raised gold letters. Almost on the street was an old sign with a little history about the school. I read it to myself.

_"Founded in A. D. 2084, Arbor High is one of the oldest still-standing schools on the Earth and by far one of the most beautiful."_ A. D. 2084…it was so long ago. I heard footsteps as Max joined me.

"So, have you figured out what classes you're taking?" he asked.

"What? Oh…I haven't thought about classes at all, actually."

"I would, 'cause they're kind of important," he told me, grinning. I smiled back.

"Yeah, I could've guessed that. I just don't know what I'd take."

"Take Spanish 1 at least…we may end up in the same class," he said.

"Yeah, that'd be great. And it sounds like…um, fun, I guess." I shrugged. Max turned and walked towards the main building. I followed him. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"Don't you need to register your classes? To do that, you've gotta go to the main office," he explained.

"Ohhh, I should've known that!"

"I wonder why you didn't."

"Hey!! Are you implying that I'm dumb?!" I demanded.

"…" He hesitated, like he was thinking about what he would say. "Um…nope," he finally answered. 

"Gee, it took you a while to decide," I snapped playfully. He grinned and shrugged, opening the door for me as we made our way to the main office.

~*~

I had decided to take Drama 1 and Dance 1 (as tempting as it sounded to be in a class with a horde of sweaty guys, I couldn't stand having to run a mile as a warm-up.), as well as geometry, English 1, Environmental Science, and Economic Systems Honors. I turned in the registration form and left the office. Max was waiting right outside.

"Well?" he asked.

"'Well' what?"

"What electives are you taking?"

"Spanish, drama, and dance," I told him.

"Rayne, I didn't know you were a thespian!" He grinned. I hit him playfully on the head.

"I'm not, you moron! If I was, do you think I'd be going out with you?!" I snapped. He looked confused for a minute, but then he burst into laughter.

"No, not a…I said _thespian_, an actress," he explained.

"…Oh," I said after a few seconds. 

"Just to make sure, you're not…" 

"NO!!" I hit him again.

"Fine, fine! Jeez! Just stop with the hitting!"

~*~

My schedule arrived in the mail a week later, and Max called me almost immediately.

"Hey Max!" I said, greeting him with a wave on the vid-phone. 

"What's your schedule look like?" he asked. I put it up against the screen for him. "Hey, we _do_ have Spanish together! But that's it. Oh, and we both have second lunch."

"How do you know that?" I wondered.

"Lunch is in order of fifth period. The two gyms and the trailers have second lunch."

"Oh, I get it. Anyways, I know you're taking Spanish and I _hope_ you're taking Phys. Ed…so what's your other elective?"

"Fundamentals of technology."

"Gee, how fun," I said sarcastically. "I bet you can't wait to take that. Besides, aren't you already pretty good with technology?"

"Yeah. That's one reason I'm taking the class. I'll be ahead of everyone else," he said. I grinned and muttered,

"Slacker."

"Yep. So, you got a place to stay yet?"

"Oh, damn, I never even thought about that!" I cursed. Max grinned.

"Didn't think so. You were never one to look very far ahead."

"Max, please…where are _you_ staying?"

"Well, the Gundam pilots invited me to stay with them," he answered. I nodded, waiting for him to go on. "Duo told me that Quatre paid for a huge house…he said something about the 'rewards of having rich friends'. So I'm staying with them and their friends, Hilde and Dorothy. Duo said to ask you if you'd like to stay too."

"Tell him that I'd love to stay with them," I replied. _"God, I haven't seen the pilots since...since Libra,"_ I thought.

"Got it. Talk to you later!"

"'Kay, bye." His face disappeared and I turned off the vid-phone. School was going to be _very_ interesting.

#### To be continued…

_What'll happen when school starts?? What kinds of things will happen when the Gundam pilots, Hilde, Dorothy *gag, choke*, and Max are all living in the same house? How good or bad will their grades be? Stay tuned and find out in _Hate This Place 02: Homeroom_!_


	2. Sigh...Homeroom

# Hate This Place

Disclaimer: I seriously don't own Gundam Wing. But I *do* own Rayne and Shira Cetauri, as well as Max Kine and the Riverdown/Icewing Gundam. But that's it!

Setting: This is an AU (alternate universe) story starting right at the end of _Silent Storm_. Rayne never self-destructed the Icewing. So she's still alive.

Warnings: Lotsa stuff to warn ya about. So here starts the long list: Sex, drugs, (not much, though, cause that's not a subject I'd care to familiarize myself with) and – 

(Little voice: rock and roll?) 

No … To continue… drinking, suicide attempts, homework, cursing, death/angst, humor, cheerleader bashing, (don't we all love it? ^_^) Dorothy bashing, (Same question applies ^_~) relationship issues, parties, bad families, slight shounen ai (no 3x4…*sigh* sorry) and the G-boys and girls together in one house. If you found…um, 3 or more things on this list that you don't feel comfortable with, then you might not like this story. A lot of this stuff happens later on. 

Notes: I have way too many different stories going on… Okay, since this is from my imagination they're going to a public school with no uniforms. The school is _not_ real and it's called Arbor High School. I modeled it after my own school, but the gym's actually on the same side of the street and the auditorium isn't being renovated. 

Since they're all 15 or 16 I'm assuming they're in high school. Also, they're all freshman except for Trowa, who's a sophomore. Anyways, I switch POVs every once in a while, but it'll have the narrator's name at the beginning. This story's gonna cover the whole school year, so some of the events may not be elaborated a lot. If they were, it could possibly end up being the size of a novel. And I wouldn't want to put you through that kind of torture. ^_~

I'd appreciate reviews if you'd like to submit one!!

## Chapter 2: Sigh…Homeroom

### Duo

My eyes shot open as the alarm blared right in my ear. I rolled over onto my back and slammed my fist onto the alarm clock, expecting to hit the snooze button. Instead I heard a crunch noise as my fist…uh, kinda went through it.

You'd never think it, but sometimes I forget that I'm a Gundam pilot.

As I got out of bed I wondered why the open house had to start so early. Maybe they wanted us to get used to getting up early or something. I sighed and dragged myself to the edge of the bed, and swung my feet over the side. The rest of me followed slowly.

I could see light coming from the other room…I wondered who was up so early. So I went to find out.

"Hey," came a familiar voice from the kitchen. I hadn't heard that voice in a while…I barely recognized who it was until I saw her face.

"Hi Rayne, when did you get here?" I asked. She smiled.

"Late last night. I couldn't sleep –y'know, the open house and stuff- so I decided to make some breakfast," she explained.

"It's a little hard to believe, isn't it? Summer's already over," I muttered.

"Yeah, and we had almost zero time to enjoy it, with battles and stuff, and winning the war. By the way, you didn't register under your _real_ name, did you?" she asked. [1]

"Hell no!" I nearly shouted, then lowered my voice. "I'm not that dumb!"

"So what should I be calling you from now on?"

"Uhhh…I forgot." I grinned.

"How're you gonna get through the year if you dpn't even remember your name?!" Rayne shouted. A door opened into the hallway and along came Wu-man, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"What the hell is going on out here?" he demanded, looking at me. I shrugged like an idiot and replied,

"Just trying to wake you up for the open house, Wu-man."

"My name is not Wu-man, Maxwell!"

"And my name's not Maxwell." Rayne stifled a giggle.

"What's so funny, woman?!" Wu-man shouted. Another door opened.

"Oh, no, you didn't…" said a very aware Max as he entered the kitchen.

"Oh yes he did!" Rayne snapped. "My name is not woman, you chauvinistic jerk!" She lunged for Wu-man, but Max and I held her back. "Let me go! I'll teach him a little respect!" I was tempted to let her tackle him…but I decided against it. 

"Anyone for breakfast?" I hadn't noticed Quatre sneak into the kitchen and pull something off the burner.

  
"Oh, jeez, did I burn the eggs?!" Rayne shouted. 

"Nope," Quatre told her. "I got them just in time."

"Thanks," Rayne said. Then Trowa and Heero wandered through the hallway and into the kitchen.

By now, most of the house was awake, with the exception of Hilde and Grasshopper. [2] I expected that Hilde was listening to this whole conversation, but was waiting until it was quiet to make her entrance. I didn't know about Grasshopper, she was really unpredictable.

Grasshopper (Dorothy) came into the kitchen. I still couldn't believe that Quatre was inviting her to stay with us…it was plain to everyone that, despite her violent nature, he liked her. As in _like_ liked. As in 'would you go out with me' liked. 

Anyways, Hilde arrived a few minutes later. We ate breakfast: slightly overcooked scrambled eggs, toast, and extra-crispy bacon á la the-chef-got-distracted-by-a-fight.

Then we went to get ready. Of course, it took me about ten minutes…but then again, I'm a guy. Hilde, Rayne, and Dorothy all took about half an hour. Hilde was trying to decide what to wear, Dorothy basically stuck herself to a make-up mirror, and Rayne was doing both.

I never knew any of them could be so superficial. I had to admit, though, that it was pretty amusing…seeing these three war-girls fussing over their hair and clothes. I guess it made them feel like they were almost normal.

We caught the bus to Arbor about half an hour later (while Hilde was still complaining that her hair looked funny), and arrived at the school in another 15 minutes.

There were a lot of people there. And I mean _a lot_. There must've been more than 500 students!

Most of them were walking with their parents –probably the freshmen and sophomores- and the juniors and seniors had come by themselves.

I felt kind of weird as I walked into the main building; it almost felt like I was being watched. Not really watched, but…it was a feeling of paranoia. I had never been with such a large group of people since the war ended…not that I would likely get to know, anyways. These people…there was a chance that they would become my friends. And, if people knew who I really was, they could possibly become targets for rebellions.

Being a Gundam pilot isn't always fun, you know.

We went into the main building and I pulled out my schedule.

"Where's your homeroom?" I asked Heero. He just grunted in reply. "Sheesh, fine. Be that way." I turned to the others. "Anyone have homeroom in room 308?" None of them did. In fact, none of us had the same homeroom. "Well then, see ya!" I exclaimed, heading towards the stairs.

I skipped steps as I went up to the third floor. Though I'd never, _ever_ admit it, I was sort of excited about school starting.

The classroom was right by the stairs. I stepped inside and checked out my future classmates. Of course, I'd only be coming to homeroom a few days out of the year, but oh well. There were a lot of 9th graders in the room. 

I looked around and finally found the teacher, a short old woman with man, many wrinkles on her face. She was talking to another adult, probably someone's parent. I decided not to interrupt as I pulled out my schedule and looked to see if there were any other classes on the third floor. And there were two other classes: Algebra and computer skills. The Algebra room was closer, so that's were I went. 

The room was almost empty. I shuddered as I walked through the door, and saw the teacher. My schedule said that Mr. Cress was the teacher, and I saw him.

"Hi, are you in my class?" he asked. I just nodded. "What's your name?" I looked at my schedule again. 

"Darien Mitchell," I replied. 

"And you're in my…second period class," he said. 

"Yeah."

"Welcome to Algebra 1 then! Are your parents with you…?" I shook my head. "Oh. Okay…here's a list of supplies that you'll be needing." He handed me a sheet of paper. The first thing I noticed was the graphing calculator.

"A graphing calculator?!" I shouted. "Those things are like a hundred bucks!!" 

"There are a few in the classroom to use for classwork, but you can't take them home. I would strongly suggest at least _trying_ to get one."

"Yeah, sure," I told him. But I'd probably end up using one of his. I started to leave the room.

"See you on Monday!" he exclaimed. I nodded and sighed.

I didn't bother going to the other rooms. I'd just get all the stuff on Monday anyways. I sighed…Monday was so close…I needed to catch up on sleep and start getting my supplies. I sat on a bench in front of the school and wrote down the supplies that I'd probably need, and the others soon came from the building.

"So, how're the teachers?" I asked once everyone had arrived. They muttered incoherent complaints and I grinned.

"What about you, Duo?" Rayne asked. 

"Eh…they're…they're kinda okay, I guess…" I looked at my watch. It was about 12:00. "Hey, no wonder I'm hungry! It's time for lunch!"

"How can you tell?" Hilde joked. "You're always hungry." 

"I'm getting kinda hungry too," Quatre said. "Maybe we should go home and I can fix some sandwiches." 

"As soon as the bus gets here," Max agreed.

The bus got there about ten minutes later. As I sat there and watched the school building disappear, a sense of dread came over me. It wasn't the feeling I got before a battle…it was more of an anxious itchiness in the back of my mind…it was hard to explain.

Somehow I felt that high school was gonna be much different than I expected.

-------------------------------------------------

[1] People know who they are, ya know? They wouldn't want that kind of stuff distracting them in school. (Think of Evangelion, when Shinji's classmates find out that he was piloting the Eva! See what I mean?)

[2] I dunno why, but Dorothy reminds me of a grasshopper. ^_^ 

_Will Duo get a graphing calculator? How will the first day of school be? Will everyone get lost? (Probably) Does Duo's sense of dread mean anything? Next time on Hate This Place: The first day of school isn't going as planned for Heero. And he does the impossible! Stay tuned to find out what he does in Hate This Place 03: The Maze! _


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